Butchazarkagan
Butchazarkagan ''is the twelfth studio album by 404. The album was originally released on November 10, 2017 to YouTube and bandcamp. Background After ''Steelhead, 404's music began to incorporate more rock influence. The Great Unknown ''contained a few songs with a rock foundation, and then ''Every Hour ''took it further and incorporated elements of progressive rock for nearly the entire project. Although ''Vectors ''was mostly a return to the experimental hip hop sound of ''Steelhead, it was clear that Louis was moving away from that sound in 2017 and searching for something else. After thinking about what the next album would be, Louis decided that he would finally return to the idea of making a rock opera. He conceptualized a political story about an idealistic leftist teenager who gets more invested in the political world. This concept was finalized and the album would be called Campaign. Louis created some instrumentals for that album using the midi guitar sound that he had created in 2016 and previously used in songs such as "Stays the Same." However, midway through creating instrumentals for Campaign, Louis listened to Mr Bungle's Disco Volante. He then had the idea to create the weirdest album that he had ever made. This concept is what led to the creation of Butchazarkagan. The album title was created after Louis hit random page on Wikipedia a few times and took syllables out of the titles from articles he landed upon. Recording and Production Using the same midi guitar that was being used to create instrumentals for Campaign, Louis began work on the instrumentals for Butchazarkagan. He used new drum samples for the cymbal sounds to make them sound more natural than they ever had before. Butchazarkagan ''uses a number of experimental ideas for 404 at that time. The first instrumental created for the album was "I Have Transcended This Earth and Entered the Dimension of Strange Phallic Towers." This instrumental set the tone for most of the instrumentals to follow, which would be crafted in a similarly experimental way. Louis would often find new types of samples mid-song to abruptly transition song sections into entirely different musical ideas. After recording the original vocal track for "Observation of the Most Unusual Kind," Louis decided it was time to get a new microphone than the Blue Snowball he'd been using since ''Until I Die. He bought a new Shure SM57 analog microphone to capture better vocals and especially better screams. For the first time, Louis would frequently return to instrumentals that were already finished to add instrumental flourishes to them. Some songs contain live drum recordings integrated into them, such as "They Told Me I Couldn't Be a Pretentious Asshole but Look Where I Am Now," "The Massacre," and especially "Mr. Monkey." Live bass guitar recordings and keyboard recordings were also spliced into songs like "Ah Yes" and "The Massacre." Louis even recorded a power drill for use in "An Angel's Wings to Cure Your Ailment." Music and Lyrics Butchazarkagan ''is heavily inspired by Mr. Bungle, and as such many of its songs feature abrupt genre changes from section to section. The songs are mostly rock songs, which separates it greatly from every album 404 released from ''Beyond Recognition ''to ''Vectors, although it does share similarities with ''Every Hour ''in that respect. However, the songs on ''Butchazarkagan ''feature guitar midis far more than that album does. The album is an experimental rock album, with elements of noise rock and hip hop. The song structures are manic and disorienting, and almost none of them feature basic verse-chorus forms or even anything approaching that. The riffs and melodies are almost always dissonant, harsh, and dark, with lighter melodies almost always being used only to contrast with the dissonant sounds of everything else. Lyrically, ''Butchazarkagan ''often has a sense of humor about itself. Songs like "They Told Me I Couldn't Be a Pretentious Asshole but Look Where I Am Now" and "I Have Transcended This Earth and Entered the Dimension of Strange Phallic Towers" are very dark topically but approach this with a comedic lens, either in the lyrics themselves or just in the delivery of the lyrics. Other songs like "Politicians Lie (The Protest Song)" are entirely joke songs. The album's sense of humor also shows in the way song sections contrast with one another. The song "How to Successfully Land a Toad on Jupiter" is about how arbitrary gender roles are, and how no one seems to recognize it. A lot of the song topics on ''Butchazarkagan ''came from the aftermath of a very stressful and emotionally defeating event that took place in Louis' life. Songs like "Observation of the Most Unusual Kind" and "Sleep Soundly and Drive Carefully" are specifically about this time. This is notable because this personal event would continue to heavily affect Louis' lyrics in the future. The final track "An Angel's Wings to Cure Your Ailment" is also a personal song topic. The song uses a literal murderer luring someone in by claiming to fulfill their dreams and then chopping off their "wings" as a metaphor for how easy Louis found it to completely lose interest in his aspirations and goals, and how personally defeating this would often be. Album Art The ''Butchazarkagan ''album art was drawn digitally by DoodlyJen. It features an alien-like plant growing in a hazy blue world surrounded by warped silhouettes. After Jen made the cover, Louis added some filters to it in Photoshop to further warp the art. It is the first album released under the name 404 that actually features 404 in text on the cover. Promotion The album was promoted with two videos. First, a video was uploaded to the MediocreEditor YouTube channel titled "My new album BUTCHAZARKAGAN is the greatest album of all time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" which was presented in the typical trolling style of that channel. Second, a lengthier promotional video was uploaded to YouTube titled "Butchazarkagan Coming 11/10/17 (YOU'RE GONNA LOVE IT)" which was heavily ironic in nature. The video featured guest recordings by The Self Contained Thinker and DemSoc "endorsing" the album. It also featured an "endorsement" from Keith (A Cool Guy). Louis bookends these guest promo clips with a very forceful ad as 404, proclaiming the album to be "better than your favorite album" and "the best album you've ever fucking heard." A day before the album's release, a final promo video entitled "BuTCHaZaRKaGaN 11.10.17" was uploaded to YouTube. The video featured an edited version of "Ah Yes" as the album art and release date fade in. Track Listing Personnel Louis Falgout - Vocals, production, writer, bass guitar, drums, keyboard Jennifer Mong - Album ArtCategory:Albums